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Faust Vajhen
Biography Born to a Woodsman and Illegal Herbomancer within the Western Greatwoods, Faust was raised in proximity to nature for most of his life. Taught literacy and mathematics by his mother, Faust's family was regularly called upon by Holland and neighboring fiefs to provide aid to the sick and wounded, or to aid in saving harvests. Although many were aware of the magics involved, most members of the countryside simply disregarded the infraction out of necessity. Ultimately, his mother's actions caught up with them, and Soldiers were dispatched from the Western Capitol to take her away when Faust was seven. No resistance was posed, save a child tugging at his mother's dress, ripping a piece off as the guards took her away. At the behest of village elders across the fiefs, the remaining family was spared; but the capture of his mother perpetually haunted the mind of Faust for years to come. Eventually Faust's father fell ill after he had been poisoned by a LizardKin arrow whilst woodcutting. While Faust himself had been studying in his mother's footsteps as an apothecary, he had never had to treat a poison before. Assuming the arrow to have been tipped with Lizard Fester, he applied an Azarian Moss poultice. The misdiagnosis proved fatal, as the poultice had not been fully prepared, nor would it have treated his father's malignant injury. After carting his father to be buried in the Hollish Graveyards After falling into a rut of depression, Faust found temporary room and board working in the local tavern and sleeping in the stables, preferring that to returning to an empty home. Many of the Rangers and Tavern Keeper having known him, eventually gathered enough money to send him to the Capitol to study when word that the local Alchemist was taking an apprentice. At 17, Faust returned home to collect his mother's notes and journals, and then proceeded to the Capitol where he studied alchemy under the local master; and a former client of his mother. His apprenticeship mostly consisted of fetching wine from the marketplace and fetching reference materials from the library. Eventually he grew accustomed to the routine and overall lack of education. As the librarians grew accustomed to his visits, he was able to wander the libraries with less supervision. It wasn't until he had been caught reading a book instead of fetching one did the scholars take great interest, and aided in his education. In times work was slow or he was unneded, the librarians would happily pay Faust a small wage to take care of the tedious works of transcribing books and letters. Eventually after a point of logistical strain on alchemical reagents, Faust's mentor had begun growing desperate. Falsely assuming that Faust was an herbomancer as his mother was, he asked him to grow new stock out of what was present as a seeder crop. When Faust's mundane nature was brought to light, his mentor encouraged him to study and attempt vitae. Faust did study herbomancy for a year, but when it came time for him to attempt vitae. he refused, terrified of the results of failure he had studied. As a result Faust was discharged from the Alchemist's service, and found employment with the Librarians next door. He remained with the Librarians for significant amount of time. As their youngest member, he was often assigned to travel abroad to alternate Kingdoms, Fiefs, and in rare instances,, continents. Faust traveled far and wide enhancing his knowledge, documenting new creatures, studying the mancies further, learning alternate cultures, and even enhancing his alchemy. It wasn't until his early 30s however that he began traveling to battlegrounds to study tactics, warfare, and weaponry; at the behest of the Golden Banner's military advisors and council no less. Having done his best to avoid such gruesome and macabre sights most of his life, such duty took a very strong toll on Faust's psyche. To deal with the stress, Faust became reliant upon smokeleaf to calm his nerves and sleep while studying Tribal Warfare in Keleva. After an attempt to quit red smokeleaf cold turkey nearly killed him in withdrawal. Rather than attempting to quit the habit a second time, irrational and shamanistic orcish drug-affected decision making led him to believe that attempting Vitae under the shamans who had been feeding him the aforementioned substances was a better idea. so he could grow more smokeleaf. To the surprise of many, he emerged from the Shaman's tent naked, thinned, and covered in paint as a newly created herbomancer three weeks later. Knowing his nation's stance on mancy however, he kept his vitae a closely guarded secret. While in Vitae, his dependency on Red Smokeleaf had also waned, and thus he simply wrote his three weeks with the Shaman as spiritual and physical rehabilitation, rather than Vitae. Upon returning to Trepheon, he discovered that most of his fellow librarians had passed away from age. He arrived home as one of the eldest of his peers, and began a period teaching younger nobles and scholars before devoting his remaining efforts to study of runology at the behest of King Marn. While assisting with research leads on runology, he helped the new Alchemist maintain his herb gardens for free to help stay in shape, and secure some peace from what heand his pupils came to recognize as dangerous research. He always seemingly had a smokeleaf cigar at the ready wherever he went as well. Ultimately, as King Marn became more paranoid, he took the Runology research off the hands of the librarians much to their relief. As for Faust, he was quickly developing a sense of "Longhouse Fever" as Dwarves would call it, and jumped at the opportunity to travel with Western Attiles to document the first Black Knight invasion, following the train of events all the way back to Holland, where his final duties as a scribe were far outweighed by his need to be a healer. Following those events, he eventually decided to travel to Shinjon, and then Ludwag, and was absent during King Marn's madness and the Runeblade incident. Feeling both accountable and fearful that the Runeblade research would be traced back to himself and his pupils, he decided to remain a wandering scholar, and has only returned to the Capitol periodically to have his journals transcribed and published. As his resources dwindled during his later travels, and his social networks began failing from either age and mutual forgetfulness, Faust has since found himself regularly impoverished, and heavily reliant on his Herbomancy. Faust is now content to travel Trepheon, aiding countrymen of all nations in their harvests, and healing the wounded with his potions and poultices; All with a smokeleaf cigar clamped between his teeth. Appearance Although at one point he was a well-kempt man, this has degraded as he's become older and independent His hair and beard are long and full, not unlike that of Kelevan lions, white with the sparse remnants of his youthful black fading away. Despite his mancy practice, his body has remained stout and hardy from his constant traveling; a boon not known to many scholars and mancers.. Faust's skin has not been spared its marks though, as his tanned and sun-wrinkled skin readily belies his age. Already hardened by his travels, intermittent poverty has only made Faust even more acclimated to discomfort, as he often travels barefoot. He has become so acclimated to traveling that only the most extreme heat or cold warrants covering up, and even then, wrappings and sandals typically suffice. His teeth and nails have been yellowed by his smokeleaf usage. His travels and sleeping in stables have alsogiven him a very strong, wild smell, only accented by the myriad amounts of herbs he keeps. He often wears a red cloth tied around his head, the moth-eaten remnants of a lady's dress. He also keeps a pair of tinted goggles on hand to aid with snowblindness and desert glare. Wealth & Property Faust is poor, but seemingly by choice. What money he does come into is normally spent shortly thereafter on seemingly nonsensical items such as bottles, herbs, and the occasional sweetroll. Faust normally travels barefoot in a set of robes made from waterproofed canvas obtained from the Western docks, and a sackcloth cowl, although he has sets of formal clothes back West in the traditional opulent fashion of the region. He keeps a piece of his mother's dress as a memento, and a few pieces of environmental equipment for his travels. His knapsack is usually filled with important supplies, but he also keeps a cask of ink, a quill, and bound journal with him. He also takes a small alchemical set in his travels. Although he's used to sourcing alchemical reagents locally, he'll take seeds and buds of particularly rare reagents that he can plant when stationary for some time. In emergencies, he'll use his herbomancy to rapidly grow food or reagents; this however is normally done over the course of a few days to a week. Although he has technically inherited his father's property, he has not paid taxes on it since his departure. That hasn't stopped him from stay there from time to time, as the locale was struck from Hollish Records after Faust moved to the Capitol as a boy. Due to its discreet and nigh-hidden location, he finds that he can safely return every so often to find it virtually untouched.